Kay Koeninger

Hi everyone,

Wow, this week flew by! I almost forgot to write a blog post because I was convinced I had already written one for the week. 

This week I finished surveying the boxes. I am ready to relabel the folders and rearrange them into new boxes!
I also spent part of this week tracking down Kay Koeninger. She was a Scripps faculty member who took interest in T.S. Eliot’s visit to Claremont and wrote an article about it in the 80s after interviewing Scripps alumnae who remembered the visit. Her letters are fascinating. I hope to reach out to her and ask her about her research.
Thanks for reading!
Zoey

Back to the Books

Hello Everyone,

I have spent the week organizing and hitting the
books. I have condensed and organized all the boxes. It is satisfying to
see everything nice and neat and orderly!

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I have been reviewing the manuals on how to proceed to
the next steps, creating the Collection Description and the Finding Aid. I have
also been studying the Describing Archives A Content Standard (DACS) to
help me understand what’s next.

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I am excited to move on to the next and continue this
wonderful learning experience. Have a great weekend!


 

Success

I’ve been experiencing the mid-semester blues lately,
especially leading up to the completion of my master’s thesis. Success and
failure have been looming themes in my life recently, and as if the Chaffey
Brothers could read my mind I came across this letter:

“We notice that it is your deposition always to lean on
others and we say in all kindness that if you are going to make a success
especially in this country you must stand alone and depend upon your own judgement
and rely upon your own strong hand to make business go.

We do not feel it to be our duty to you or to outsiders to
omit & point out the fact that if a man wants or expects success he must
take hold of the plow and never look back, bending all his efforts and energy
towards the land in view.

We will adhere strictly to a guarantee up to this time, but
beyond it you must decide to act for yourself.

We shall always take pleasure in affording you every
possible assistance in either a friendly or a business way, but all your
decisions must be from yourself & for yourself.”

It’s a good reminder that I have a lot of work to do to
finish my degree. My fate is in my own hands and my commitment to complete my
work can’t falter at the finish-line. If you are also struggling to find the
motivation to work I encourage you to take hold of the plow and never look
back!

Week Three

Hey everyone,

This was my third week exporting and renaming PDF files from Frankish Book 1 and I’m almost done! There were 500 scans that needed to be exported and 500 transcripts that needed to be renamed and paired. I am about to hit page 470, so only 30 more to go! It has been very interesting working with this book and tracking Mr. Frankish’s business transactions and correspondences.
Nothing new to report other than that!
Have an awesome weekend!
Hazel

PDF/As

Hi everyone!

This week I spent my time converting files to PDF/As. The conversion process has been rewarding as well. I
now better understand the need for PDF/As. Although it is a repetitive and tedious process, it is important that PDF files are converted into PDF/As. Interestingly, I came across some PDF files that contained large transactions. The PDFs were from Chaffey Letters Book II. Although numbers on a letter dated in late 1800s doesn’t sound appealing, it is fascinating to observe the value of land during this time.
Until next week!
Angel Ornelas

Problems with Processing

Hi Everyone! 

This week, I officially started processing the Yao family papers, which is exciting but also quite challenging. Although I spent the first few weeks surveying the documents and took my time to draft the processing plan carefully, my proposed processing plan still proved to be ineffective. As I was sorting through the photographs in the collection, I realized that some photos do not belong to any of my conceptualized categories. Additionally, I discovered that when I was surveying the collection, my categorization of the photographs was not standardized. For instance, I sometimes placed the photos of Claremont boy scouts under  the “people” category, and other times under “Claremont.” Thus, facing these problems, my week was not as productive as I wanted it to be. 

However, it was definitely fun to do the detective work to find the connections between the photographs and group the relevant and related ones together. 

Since the library will be closed on Friday in recognition of Cesar Chavez day and I usually work all day on Fridays, I will only work seven hours this week. 

Hope you have a good week! 

Marcus

Emily Hale & T.S. Eliot

Hello everyone,

I am still in the process of surveying the George-Eliot collection. This week I got through two boxes. 
The survey honestly has been taking longer than expected because I cannot help but stop and read every letter. Eliot’s letters at times deeply move me and at other times make me laugh out loud as if he and I share an inside joke. 
I particularly enjoy T.S. Eliot’s gossips: “Mrs. P is a type of stupid woman that I have come across before, and I know that the only way to save oneself from them in the long run is to run away.” He really hated this Mrs. P woman and I wonder if she really was as bad as he describes. 
And then there are the sweet concerns T.S. Eliot expresses about Emily Hale: “The exasperation of looking on at a situation about which I can do nothing has made me want at times to rush out into the garden and pull up all the prize dahlias and whatnots” (Eliot to Jeanette McPherrin about Emily Hale’s health and well-being 1935).
If I find more quotes I love from his letters, I will share them!
Thanks for reading! 
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File Verification

Hello Everyone,

This week I worked on verifying that the transcripts of the Frankish Letters Book 2 match the correlating scans, and I am happy to report that they do!

While I have been working on this, I have found myself reflecting on the intricacy of the penmanship of the letters. The handwriting is very beautiful and artistic.

Until Next Time,
Sydney

Ready for Phase 2

Hello Everyone, I have finally managed to make my way
through all the boxes for some initial processing. I began with twenty-seven
boxes and ended up with twenty-one boxes of sorted records. I have another pass
through to perform so I can double check my work, and a few odds and ends to fix,
but I have a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. I am looking forward to continuing
to the next phase in the processing plan next week. Have a great weekend!   

Scans and Conversions

Hi everyone!

This week I spent my time scanning letters from Chaffey Letters Book III and converting files to PDF/As. The scanning process was a slow and rewarding one. I became more familiar with executing quality scans that are able to capture the archive in its entirety. Not only has the scanning process allowed me to become more familiar with quality control and archival digitization, it has allowed me to gain a deeper insight into Chaffey’s transactions and personal remarks. The conversion process has been rewarding as well. I now better understand the need for PDF/As.
Until next week!
Angel Ornelas